Bunker Hill

services of one of our best and ablest men. We have not a sufficient number of such men left to be prodigal of their lives in future.” Abigail Adams writes of the profound sense of loss felt in the wake of Joseph Warren’s death in a July 5, 1775, letter in
Adams Family Correspondence
1:240.
    In a June 20, 1775, letter to John Adams (also in
Warren-Adams Letters
), James Warren claims that “had a Lee or a Washington instead of a general destitute of all military ability [i.e., Artemas Ward]” been in command at Bunker Hill, the battle “would have terminated with as much glory to America as the 19th of April,” p. 63. Samuel Gray writes of the battle being of “infinite service to us” in a July 12, 1775, letter in
HSOB
, p. 394. The reference to the provincial soldiers returning to Cambridge “like troops elated with conquest” is in a June 23, 1775, anonymous letter in
LAR
, p. 142. Nathanael Greene writes of wishing to sell the British “another hill at the same price” in a June 28, 1775, letter in
PNG
, p. 92. George Washington’s insistence that he did not “think myself equal” to commanding the American army is from a June 16, 1775, “Address to the Continental Congress,” in
PGW
, 1:1. Allen French describes Washington’s positive response to the news of Bunker Hill (“Then the liberties of our country are safe”) in
FYAR
, p. 267. Peter Thomas in
Tea Party to Independence
describes how the ministry quickly decided after hearing about Bunker Hill on July 25 that New York, not Boston, should “become the seat of the war,” p. 270. Eliphalet Dyer describes Washington as “sober, steady, and calm” in a June 17, 1775, letter in
PGW
, 1:3. Ron Chernow cites Gilbert Stuart’s description of Washington as “the fiercest man among the savage tribes” in
Washington: A Life
, p. xix.
    My account of Washington’s early military experience is indebted to Chernow’s biography, Joseph Ellis’s
His Excellency George Washington
, David Clary’s
George Washington’s First War
, Edward Lengel’s
General Washington: A Military Life
, and Fred Anderson’s
Crucible of War
,
as well as his article “The Hinge of the Revolution: George Washington Confronts a People’s Army.” Washington’s letter to Governor Dinwiddie claiming that his “troops of Virginia” were “as regular a corps as any upon the continent” is cited by Ellis in
His Excellency George Washington
, p. 26; Ellis also argues that Washington was in “emotional turmoil” during the Forbes campaign “because he had fallen in love with one woman and was about to marry another,” p. 35. Fred Anderson writes of Washington’s effort to “become more British than the British,” in “The Hinge of the Revolution,” p. 42. Gouverneur Morris’s description of Washington having passions that were “almost too mighty for man” is in an “Oration upon the Death of General Washington,” in
Eulogies and Orations on the Life and Death of General George Washington
, pp. 44–45. James Thacher’s description of first seeing Washington is in his
Military Journal
, p. 30. Washington’s stepson George Custis’s description of the general’s “surpassing grip with his knees” is cited by Richard Brookhiser in
George Washington: Founding Father
, p. 111; Brookhiser also cites Benjamin Rush’s claim that the typical European king would “look like a valet de chamber by his side,” 114. John Trumbull’s description of being temporarily part of “the family of one of the most distinguished and dignified men of the age” is in his
Autobiography
, p. 23. On daily life at Washington’s headquarters, see J. L. Bell’s
General George Washington’s Headquarters and Home
, especially pp. 163–84.
    Fred Anderson writes insightfully about Washington’s reaction to the provincial army in “The Hinge of the Revolution,” commenting that in “the New Englanders’ squalid camps . . . Washington saw the symbol of a mixed multitude in peril of becoming a mob” (p. 29). On the Native American composition of the provincial army, particularly the “Stockbridge Indians,” see Colin Calloway’s
The American Revolution in Indian Country
, pp. 85–94. William Emerson’s account of the soldiers’ living quarters, including his description of a meal with the Stockbridge Indians in their wigwams, is in a July 7, 1775, letter included in his
Diary
, pp. 80–81. Washington calls the New Englanders “exceeding dirty and nasty